Wee Waa young gun earns a Lisa Fiaola Cup call-up for South Sydney Rabbitohs

Wee Waa teenager and gun footballer Taylor Horne has dreams of one day becoming an NRLW player and lining up to play State of Origin, and she has taken a significant step towards achieving those goals after recently being invited to train with the South Sydney Rabbitohs’ under-17s team later this year.

The Wee Waa High School Year 10 student will link up with the squad for pre-season training from November and is determined to earn herself a roster spot for the 2025 Westpac Lisa Fiaola Cup season, which will likely kick off in February next year.

Taylor was picked to compete in the North West under-16 schools team at the Greater Northern trials earlier this year. The 15-year-old was selected onto the Greater Northern team from there and travelled to Camden to play at the NSW Combined High Schools Sports Association under-16s state trials late last month.

It was there that the talented lock/second-rower was identified as being a future star and invited to join the Rabbitohs’ under-17s squad.

Taylor told The Courier that she could not wait to link up with the team and hopefully take her game to another level.

“I’ll be training down there with them three days a week,” Taylor said.

“Pre-season will start in November and will go to January, and then the season will start.

“A lot of people in the community know people down there and have offered to help me with places to stay down there. It’s good to have support behind me.

“I’ve always just wanted to play footy, and I’m really keen.

“I learned a lot (at the NSWCHSSA trials), especially you’re only as good as the people in the team around you. Teamwork matters.

“I think I went okay there. Mainly in defence; saving tries.”

Taylor played rugby league as a junior in primary school alongside the boys but has only begun playing the sport again at a school level from last year. She said she would be keen to play ladies’ league tag and tackle footy for the Wee Waa Panthers senior teams, but she is too young to sign up.

Taylor is also a keen rugby union player. She plays for Narrabri Junior Rugby Club’s under-18s girls’ side in the Friday night competition and also helped guide North West Schools Sports Association to a silver medal finish at the NSW Combined High Schools Sports Association Secondary Girls’ Rugby Union Championships in Singleton last month.

She is a natural athlete who has played and excelled in a handful of sports growing up, and back in 2021 received North West Schools Sports Association’s most outstanding primary athlete award.

Taylor was born in Narrabri but then lived in Queensland for the first six years of her life before her family returned to live in Wee Waa.

She said that if she does one day get an opportunity to play in the State of Origin Arena, eligibility rules would likely mean that the avid Queensland supporter would have to pull on the sky blue for NSW.

However, she declared that it would be worth it to get a chance to play with and against the country’s best players on one of the grandest stages of rugby league.